Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)

I roamed the tiny apartment. Icouldn’t help but smirk when I found a few crumpled twenties stuffed inside the sugar jar and three more tucked underneath the plastic silverware tray. I left them there and made myself coffee.
    The fridge had next to nothing in it. I unhappily spooned some orange créme yogurt out of a plastic cup and chewed on a stick of celery filled with peanut butter. It was skinny-chick food, but better than nothing.
    I spent the next hour on her computer. I found my own blog quickly. The content startled me. Was I a wack-job, a con man, or a person haunted by the bizarre? Murders, disappearances, and equally alarming reappearances of missing persons were listed. The stories presented were told in a flatfooted, matter-of-fact style. One stood out among them to me, a recent entry.
    Heath Anderson was a mild-mannered street person known to this author. He was found in a downtown alley off Garces Ave., burning to death. Covered in flames, the man remained lucid and smiling. Even as the victim’s skin curled, he explained that the fire didn’t hurt. A group of onlookers including myself gathered to help or simply to watch. We tried to splash water on him and beat at the flames, to no avail. The man smiled until the end when he slumped down into a heap indistinguishable from a pile of ash. He remained calm throughout, even gesturing for the crowd to relax. It is unknown if Anderson had relations in the area.
    A photo accompanied the entry. I saw a pile of gray ash mounded up against a sooty brick wall. A single item stood untouched in the middle of the remains: a gleaming metal flask. I supposed no one had had the guts to steal it.
    Holly came back with a bag of groceries an hour later and froze when she saw me sitting there on the couch.
    “You’re still here,” she said.
    I looked up. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been awake long. I should have cleared out.”
    “No,” she said. “No, no—that’s cool. Did you get some coffee?”
    I tipped my mug as evidence that I had.
    “I didn’t mean…” she began. “Never mind. I didn’t mean I wanted you out right away. You just seemed like the kind of guy who would take off while I was out.”
    I nodded slowly. “I hear you. I’ll be leaving soon, don’t worry.”
    She sighed. “I’m sorry. Where are you going to go?”
    “First, I’m going to check out my own home.”
    “You found out where it is?”
    “Whatever is left of my brain can still work the web. I live at the northeastern edge. Not too far from here.”
    “What about after that?”
    “I’m going to hit the police station in the morning,” I said.
    Holly recoiled slightly. “That’s not a good idea, Quentin.”
    My eyes slid to her face. When had I moved up from “Mr. Draith” to “Quentin”? Sleeping all day at a girl’s apartment had some benefits, I supposed.
    “I’m not in love with the law,” I said. “But they have the facts concerning Tony’s death and my own involvement in the accident.”
    Holly shook her head. “Uh-uh. They only have what they want to have.”
    “What’s that?”
    “A monopoly on cracking heads in this town, for one thing. And they want to keep it that way.”
    I frowned. “What does that mean?”
    “Pray you don’t find out.”
    I stared at her for a second. “You didn’t tell me everything you know, did you?”
    She laughed. “No. And you should be glad I didn’t, for both our sakes. Just listen to me and keep out of the police station. It’s not like it used to be.”
    I eyed her speculatively. It was easy to see a casual user, a girl who was hooked on nightlife and recreational drugs. She’d gone as far as she could working with the good genetics that had made her attractive. She had managed her resources to their best effect in order to fund her habits. No one living her lifestyle sent people to talk to policemen. Maybe her worry was a simple underlying fear I would grow a big mouth and talk about magically opening safes full of cash…and how we had helped ourselves to it.
    “Don’t worry about me,” I said, standing up.
    She looked me over. “Let me at least get you some clothes that don’t scream
freak in a raincoat
.”
    I smiled and let her lead me to a cluster of paper bags that stood behind an army of strappy shoes in her closet. Each bag was full of neatly folded clothes, which seemed odd, but I quickly figured out each bag had been left behind by a different boyfriend at one point or another. She had a